You cannot expect a foreign country to be more Catholic than the pope for you.

I hope that things will change, because it's a pity that a country like Iran is not where it should be, or where it has been historically. It's important for Iran, for all of the Middle East, and also for the rest of the world.

Monarchies are above political parties. Sometimes political parties do things that are to the disadvantage of the country because they want to beat the other party. In Iran, where we have different religions and ethnic groups, it was a unifying factor.

There are many people inside Iran who say, "We don't have enough to eat. Why do we need a nuclear bomb?"

There are many Iranians working at NASA. One of the engineers involved with the spaceship that went to Mars is an Iranian.

I remember I went to an exhibition somewhere and one of the artists, an Iranian lady, said, "I wish we had somewhere that our paintings would stay forever." So this idea came to me. I said, "She's right, we should have a place to keep them, and not only Iranian art works, but also of foreign artists."

Iranian women are very courageous and active, even with all the oppression.